


Aim High

by Para



Series: A Little Less Than Ordinary [2]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-08-15 01:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8037241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Para/pseuds/Para
Summary: In the midst of the Storm King War, Mircea joins the Heterodyne army. This is what is generally known as a Bad Idea.On the other hand, that's what people usually say about living in Mechanicsburg in the first place.(reposted/split off from the original fic; everybody gets their own fic now)





	Aim High

**Author's Note:**

> So _originally_ I was going to only write origin stories for two jagers, and their stories were going to be very short and nicely mirrored, so they got dumped in the same fic. And then, well. Plotting happened. So now everybody gets their own fic; Kai gets to keep the old one and Mircea gets a new one, because songwithnosoul is the _best ever_ and willing to repost comments for me so I don't lose them.
> 
> I'm sure I've made some minor edits, but they're just correcting typos or tweaking phrasing; nothing significant.

The Heterodynes had been at war for the last three years.

Well, no. The Heterodynes had been at war roughly forever, because a lot of people were stupid and didn’t realize they should just do what the Heterodynes said. But for three years they’d been at war with some western King who, from what Mircea could tell, was pretty similar to a Heterodyne himself. He owned an empire, and fought viciously, managed to hold the Heterodynes off.

Only he was worse; the soldiers that were sent home injured swore the way he threw his army into battle could only be meant to let them die. There was strategy—he wouldn’t have lasted this long if there wasn’t—but he treated his army like food instead of tools, ate them up once and pulled out the next set, instead of using them and setting them aside to heal and be fixed and fight again. Mircea (the other one, the braver, better one) had lost an arm and come back until it could be replaced, and said that the King called himself the Storm King, and also that he claimed the Heterodynes were the storm. Mircea couldn’t stop thinking of him as the King that Ate. Storm King only halfway made sense; he hadn’t conquered the Heterodynes yet. But the bold threat angered and terrified Mircea equally.

Mostly because it came far too close to plausible. The King that Ate hadn’t advanced on the Heterodynes, but neither had the Heterodynes been able to get past his stronghold, and that hadn’t happened in—decades, centuries. Long enough that legends said it had happened before, but how long ago was far from clear.

And Mircea couldn’t _help_. He wasn’t good at anything useful. He could follow directions, carry things for the engineers and mechanics that were building up Mechanicsburg’s defenses in case. He could carry messages, and with the Castle’s cooperation in a few spots climb nearly anything to take the most direct route and get there fastest, but even the still-healing jägers could get there faster. Mircea wasn’t big or strong enough to fight, and wasn’t smart enough to be a spark or to help them.

It seemed that no one was left who was. A message had come back, and Mircea was sent to carry copies of it around town, to bars and mechanic team leaders and the owners of popular stores. It wasn’t secret, so plenty of them read it out loud before nailing it to walls. It didn’t quite say _we need you to come to die for us_ , but—

—but if that was what the Heterodynes needed.

~---~---~---~---~

Mircea had seen the recruitment office before. He’d followed a steadily shrinking group of friends to cheer as they joined one by one, and he’d carried messages to and from the office. It hadn’t really changed since the war began; the stone of the walls and floor had been old and chipped to begin with, the papers stacked on the desk rearranged themselves day to day but not much week to week or year to year. There was a poster on the wall outside which had started appearing around town a year ago, encouraging women to get training and join as nurses.

Mircea still hovered uncertainly in the doorway until Antonescu (grew up with Mircea’s father, he’d lost a leg twelve years ago and turned out to be allergic to metal; it was all Lady Euphrosynia could do to keep him alive, or he’d still be fighting) glanced up, saw him, and waved him into the room with the hand that wasn’t busy scratching something onto paper with a pen. “Got another message for me, eh? Do I need to answer it fast?”

“Um—no.” Mircea stepped in, and let the door fall closed behind him as he stepped inside. “I don’t have one. I was taking around the last one from you, actually.”

“…Huh.” Antonescu set the pen down and looked at Mircea again. “Finally got past the fear, did you?”

“I’m not—” Mircea was afraid. He started again. “That’s not why I didn’t join.”

He raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair. “So why didn’t you?”

“I’m… I’m not strong.” It tasted bitter, still, but it was better than sounding like a coward. “Or fast, or coordinated, or smart. I didn’t think I’d be any use.”

“And you’re stronger now?”

“No.” Maybe a little, not enough to matter. Not like a soldier needed to be. “But the last message, it sounded like the Lord needs everyone. I can get in the way, anyway.”

Antonescu watched him again silently, then nodded and reached for a stack of forms. “You be sure and tell your father it was your idea, now. I don’t fancy getting into a fight with him when you die. But you’re right, the Lord needs everyone that can stand in the western king’s path.” Mircea nodded, and he pushed a form and the pen across the desk. “There you go.”

Mircea blinked at it. Was it right side up? Probably. “Uh….”

“You’ve got a few days to make up your mind before the next platoon leaves.”

“No, I can’t write.”

Antonescu snorted, and pulled the paper and pen back across the desk. He wrote something at the bottom, then turned it around and pushed it toward Mircea again. “I added your name. Make an X next to it.”

That much Mircea could do. He could recognize his name—the first half of it, anyway—even if not well enough to recreate it, and the ink was still glistening anyway. He made the X carefully, almost expecting to feel different, but nothing happened. The ink glimmered wetly and sank into the paper to match his name, and Mircea handed the pen back to Antonescu.

He took the pen, and set the paper on a much too shallow stack of similar ones. “Go celebrate, then, and be back here at dawn in three days. And get yourself a weapon in the meantime. If you can’t buy one, Lord Heterodyne will for you, just tell the seller it’s for the army.”

Mircea nodded, and backed away from the desk. “I’ll do that.” He’d have to check first, his father probably had weapons already. He might went Mircea to use them, or he might prefer to keep them so they didn’t get lost on the battlefield somewhere. Mircea had a brother, even if Nicolae was still young. He’d grow up, and the Heterodynes would still need an army then, and Nicolae would probably be more like their father than Mircea and actually useful. He was nearly Mircea’s height already, even though he was only ten.

“Oh, and messenger boy!” Antonescu called, and Mircea paused with the door halfway open. “When you get there, tell Lord Heterodyne us old men are still good for battle clanks, if he’s got ’em to spare.”

Mircea ducked his head in another nod, and grinned. There wasn’t much reason to, but Antonescu’s enthusiasm was infectious. “I’ll do that.”

“Good. Go on, then.”

Mircea let the door fall shut behind him on the way out. He’d have to remember to pass the message on quickly, maybe he’d tell someone else in the platoon in case he didn’t make it all the way there, it certainly wasn’t secret if he’d been told….

~---~---~---~---~

He didn’t go home immediately; instead he hung around the mechanics’ center for the last few hours of the day in case they needed any messages carried. There were a few messages; requests for supplies and estimates of what could be done without, according to Laura. (She, Mircea thought, would have been a better addition to the army than he would; she was taller, stronger, and had become a mechanic by marching up to Lord Heterodyne’s chief minion and demanding the job at increasing volume until he gave in. Mircea didn’t say so; Laura had been chafing at being kept out of the army for years.)

Night fell and the torchmen lit up as Mircea was walking home, turning the stone streets red and gold. He’d miss the effect.

Oana saw him first when he came in and shrieked, dropping the… hm. What had she been holding? It looked like a handful of fabric, but it didn’t unfold as it fell. She ran over, and Mircea crouched down to hug her and not be asked to pick her up. “Guess what I did today ’Cea!”

“What?”

Mircea wasn’t entirely sure Oana heard him, but she continued anyway. “Mamma taught me how to sew!”

“That’s great!” A little unclear, though. “What did you sew?”

“A pillow for Irina’s dolly!” Oana let go of Mircea, in order to latch onto his arm and begin pulling. He stood up and let her tow him back to where she’d dropped the fabric. It was a pillow, the size of Oana’s hand, with the edges pulling in oddly in some places and a piece of straw sticking out of one corner. She picked it up and held it out to him proudly. “See, now Princess doesn’t have to sleep on the floor!”

Mircea took the pillow, inspected it seriously, and then handed it back. “That’s a great pillow, I’m sure Princess will like it. But I thought she was your doll too?”

“I’m a big girl now,” Oana informed him. “I don’t need dollies.”

“Oh, I see. That’s very nice of you to give her to Irina.” Who was… hm. Mircea looked up in case, but no one else was in the room. “Have you shown her the pillow yet?”

Oana pouted. “ _Yah_ , but she said pillows don’t have straw sticking out the corners.” She poked at the straw, and it refused to vanish.

“Oh, well, I think we can fix that. Can I see?” No one was screaming and Mircea could hear Maria, Sofia and his mother all talking in the kitchen; probably Irina and Nicolae were with them. At least Irina; Nicolae could still be out playing. He sat down, and Oana dropped down next to him, handed him the pillow, and watched intently.

He poked at the straw, just to be sure; it didn’t go in. It felt like it was too long, and had run into the opposite edge; he could probably push it in, but it might just poke out the other corner instead of folding. “You know why it’s sticking out?”

“It’s too long.”

“Uh huh. So we could break it off, but the end would probably be ragged, so a little would still stick out. So what else could we do?”

Oana thought, tapped a finger deliberately against her chin, and then suggested, “cut it? Right next to the edge, so it’s flat.”

“We could, but then we might cut the fabric too. So we pull it out a little bit—see, as much as your smallest finger—and then break it off by the edge.” It broke easily, at least; it was very dry straw. “And then we can push it all the way in. See?”

“Oh!” Oana grabbed the pillow back, poked at the corner the straw had gone into, and then jumped up and ran for the kitchen. “’Rina look! The straw is gone! It’s a great pillow now, ha!”

Mircea stood up more slowly, and kept the extra bit of straw as he followed. His mother, Maria and Sofia were finishing dinner, while Irina pretended very hard to be unable to hear Oana in a corner. Mircea tossed the straw in the fire, and went to grab the cups off of Sofia’s precarious stack of tableware. “Don’t drop anything.”

“I wasn’t going to!” But the worried line in her forehead vanished, and she carried the stack of plates and silverware out of the room to the table.

“Welcome home,” Mircea’s mother said without turning away from the rolls she was pulling out of the oven. “Nicolae is upstairs, can you tell him to come down? We’ll eat as soon as your father gets home.”

“As soon as I take these out,” Mircea said, and Maria clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “There’s nothing wrong with helping.”

“Sofia needs to do her own work,” Maria said.

“I _do_!” Sofia yelled from the main room.

“You keep taking _shortcuts_.”

“Oana told me she learned how to sew today,” Mircea said over Sofia’s reply.

His mother laughed. “Well, she learned how to thread a needle.”

“ _And_ I made a pillow,” Oana informed them all. Maria shook her head and went back to the carrots she was slicing.

Mircea helped Sofia set the table, then went looking for Nicolae. He was upstairs, with a bowl on his head and brandishing a broomstick at the wall. Whether it was meant to be a sword or spear seemed to change as he waved it.

Mircea… really shouldn’t want to laugh so much at it. He waited for the impulse to die down before saying, “mamma wants you to come down for dinner.”

“Ha!” Nicolae whirled, and brandished the broom at Mircea. It seemed to have turned back into a sword. “Another enemy to distract me from my task! Will you leave in peace, or be slain in the name of the Heterodynes!”

Mircea tried not to smirk. “Well, that depends. Does your task involve eating dinner?”

Nicolae frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe….”

“Food is very important to armies.” Or anything, really. It was hard to do much without food. “I’m sure the Heterodynes would want you to be at your best to fight for them.”

Nicolae frowned for another second, then nodded. “Yeah, my task is to eat! But I’m still gonna beat you up for the Heterodynes _later_.”

“Uh huh.” Mircea stepped into the room to take the broom away, and Nicolae let him. He had no idea where the bowl belonged, so it stayed on Nicolae’s head as they went downstairs. “How about after dinner?”

Mircea’s father got home as they got downstairs, and his mother, Maria and Sofia carried food out to the table. Oana insisted that she was grown up and got to carry something too, and managed to carry the water pitcher without spilling any. Irina was holding the pillow, and arranged it and the doll carefully next to her on the chair after she climbed up. Mircea’s mother ignored the bowl on Nicolae’s head, so it stayed where it was and kept falling into his eyes until he took it off halfway through dinner.

Mircea’s day didn’t come up until after that. “Any interesting messages today?”

“…Mm.” Mircea used the roll he’d been about to eat to shove a piece of carrot across his plate. “The war is still going on. The Heterodynes need… basically anyone, who can… make the army look larger.”

His father paused. “I see.”

His mother’s tone was light and casual. “Are you thinking about joining?”

“…Already did.”

She breathed out, slowly. “Oh.”

Mircea looked back up. Irina looked confused, Oana was frowning, and everyone else was staring at him. “Herr Antonescu said I have three days.”

“Until what?” Irina asked.

“Until he goes away to be a soldier,” Maria said.

“Oh.” Irina’s face scrunched up as she frowned. Mircea stuffed the roll in his mouth, in the hope that it would remind everyone else to eat and make this less awkward. It did not. “When will you come back?”

“I… don’t know.” It felt like the roll was caught in his throat. Swallowing again didn’t help. “I probably won’t.”

“Not with _that_ attitude, certainly,” Mircea’s father said, a little too loud. “You should be thinking about how many of the Eating King’s minions you’ll kill.”

Mircea covered his mouth with a hand and coughed to cover up—he wasn’t sure if it was a laugh or a sob he was holding back.

Irina and Oana both looked like they were about to cry. “Why won’t you come back?” Irina asked. “Don’t you like us anymore?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Oana snapped.

“I can learn to sew too! An’—and help cook things!”

Mircea’s mother didn’t object to him getting up, and walking around the table to hug Irina. “Of course I still love you. But the Heterodynes need help.”

“…For the Heterodynes?” Irina repeated, and sniffed.

“Yah.”

“But… they won’t need you _forever_ , right?”

“He’s going to war, and he never wins fights,” Maria said. “He’ll probably die.”

“No!” Irina shook her head so hard her whole body followed, and Mircea had to loosen the hug. “You aren’t _allowed_!”

There wasn’t anything he could say.

~---~---~---~---~

Mircea was not good at fighting.

Mircea knew from when his friends left that at the beginning of the war everyone who joined the army spent a month in training before leaving. That wasn’t true anymore; now they spent a month and a half walking to the war with a caravan of wagons loaded with supplies, and trained every night when they stopped. It was, the (recently healed and still limping) jägermonster who was leading and teaching the newest recruits on the way out informed him, the _only_ reason Mircea wasn’t just cut right back out of the army after he dropped a knife on his own foot on the third day.

And the Heterodynes were getting desperate. But no one was saying that.

It wasn’t so bad that it kept Mircea from walking, at least; it hurt, and the cut let rain get into his boot, but it didn’t have much effect apart from making it a relief when he could sit down at the end of the day. And taking up bandages, but not _many_ ; Mircea made a point of washing them, and switching between two sets. It was a small cut, anyway, so he could probably have gotten away with just turning them.

Viorel dropped onto the ground next to the rock Mircea had claimed after training, and dumped a handful of pebbles in Mircea’s lap. “What’d the tree do to you?”

Mircea raised an eyebrow, but continued tossing pebbles at the tree’s branches. If he could, he’d be climbing them—or maybe not, he wasn’t sure if Dimo considered climbing trees to be appropriately militaristic behavior—but he really wanted to stay off his foot for a while. “Seeing how high I can hit it.”

“Huh.” Viorel watched for a few more throws, then asked, “higher branch every time?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” Viorel watched a few more, then pointed into the tree. “Think you can hit that one?”

“Which one?”

“The small one that comes out of the trunk and turns a corner.”

“…Maybe. Pretty high.” Mircea weighed the pebble he was holding, considered, and then threw. The pebble grazed the top of the branch.

Viorel’s eyebrows rose. “Think you can hit it again?”

Mircea snorted. “Well, after I hit it _once_.”

“I think that counts as a hit.”

“Doesn’t, it went over.”

“The branch is the size of a finger.”

“Yeah?” It might actually be a little larger, it was high enough it was hard to tell. But then Viorel’s hands were larger than Mircea’s anyway. He threw another pebble, and that one hit the branch and bounced off. “See, _that_ counts.”

Viorel laughed, short and disbelieving, then twisted around to yell. “Hoy, Dimo!”

“Oh come on, there can’t be anything wrong with—”

“What?” Dimo was already walking over even as he yelled back. Mircea groaned.

Viorel waited until Dimo was standing over them and frowning with his arms folded to point into the tree. “See the little branch that turns a corner?”

Dimo glanced up, then back down. “Yah, and?”

“Mircea can hit it.”

“I have no idea why he’s telling you that,” Mircea said. “It wasn’t my idea.”

Dimo’s eyebrows had risen. At least he didn’t look annoyed. “Show me.”

Mircea could probably get away with glaring at Viorel for this, so he did. Then he picked out another pebble, eyed the branch, and threw it. It bounced off, thankfully.

Dimo watched it, then kept staring into the tree. “Every time?”

“Not every—”

“I’m pretty sure the first one actually rolled over the top of the branch,” Viorel said over Mircea. “And _he_ says it doesn’t count.”

“Well, it doesn’t—”

Dimo was grinning. Mircea couldn’t tell if it was meant to be as broad as it looked, or if it was just that all of Dimo’s smiles were huge. “You ever learn to trow knives, kid?”

“Uh—no.” Mircea could barely _hold_ a knife without dropping it on himself. Throwing them had never seemed like a good idea.

“Time to learn!” Dimo announced, with a great deal more enthusiasm than Mircea felt. “Will be easier if you is standing.”

Mircea groaned, and stood up.

~---~---~---~---~

It turned out that Mircea was really good at throwing knives.

And anything else, actually. Dimo told him to keep throwing sticks and pebbles while they walked, “could be good for sabotage,” and in the meantime had him practice with throwing knives for a quarter of the time everyone else was learning sword and mace and knife fighting every evening. (The last quarter, always, which meant Mircea was always very bruised and often a bit cut up when he practiced, but Dimo said that was the best way to learn. Mircea wasn't sure if he meant it, or just found it entertaining.)

Two days later, Dimo showed up with a bow and arrows. Mircea could only draw it halfway, but still hit the tree Dimo told him to. Dimo laughed, took the bow away, and said he’d have someone that actually used a bow teach Mircea once they joined the rest of the army, and in the meantime Mircea should maybe do pushups or something so his arms got stronger.

The cut on the side of Mircea’s foot didn’t make doing pushups fun at all. On the plus side, that made them seem much more tolerable by comparison once it healed.

He still wasn’t strong enough to fully draw the bow by the time they joined the army, which the jäger Dimo hauled over to teach him wasn’t at _all_ impressed by, but he was closer. And he could hit almost anything with the knives. (Viorel still hadn’t stopped looking smug.)

Maybe he’d live a little longer than expected. That would be nice. At least, he’d be more useful.


End file.
